[nabs-l] Why I’m Scared of the SOPA bill
Chris Nusbaum
dotkid.nusbaum at gmail.com
Sun Dec 11 21:40:02 UTC 2011
Hi Mark,
If you'd like to get the Federation involved in this (and I agree
with you,) I'd contact John Paré, who is the director of
strategic initiatives for the Federation. You can email him at
jpare at nfb.org.
Chris
"The real problem of blindness is not the loss of eyesight. The
real problem is the misunderstanding and lack of education that
exists. If a blind person has the proper training and
opportunity, blindness can be reduced to a mere physical
nuisance."
-- Kenneth Jernigan (President, National Federation of the Blind,
1968-1986
The I C.A.N. Foundation helps blind and visually impaired youth
in Maryland say "I can," by empowering them through providing
assistive technology and scholarships to camps and conventions
which help them be equal with their sighted peers. For more
information about the Foundation and to support our work, visit
us online at www.icanfoundation.info!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark J. Cadigan" <kramc11 at gmail.com
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 16:30:08 -0500
Subject: Re: [nabs-l]Beneblog: Technology Meets Society: Why I’m
Scared of the SOPA bill
Perhaps, the NFB should use its collective power to modify, or
hopefully
squash the SOPA bill. I agree, that the SOPA bill could pose
problems with
the legal sharing of accessible content, as well as ensnare lots
of
unsuspecting people. Most people don’t go around intentionally
braking
copywriter law, however, sometimes, people do unintentionally.
I for one have photocopied out a page from a textbook for a
friend, or
accidentally recorded part of a radio or television show as part
of the
background in a home video. Hypothetically, if this video
happened to be
hilarious, and I posted it on line, would I get prosecuted under
this new
bill?
Maybe, someone with a lot more knowledge of the current laws, and
knowledge
of the SOPA bill could draft a letter to send to the committee
making this
bill expressing our concerns of how this bill could
unintentionally affect
blind people’s acksess to important resources like Book Share,
Web Braille,
NLS, RFBD and anything else I didn’t think of.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Hai Nguyen Ly" <gymnastdave at sbcglobal.net
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>; "Illinois Association of Blind Students
List"
<iabs-talk at nfbnet.org>; "NFB of Illinois Mailing List"
<il-talk at nfbnet.org
Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2011 1:36 PM
Subject: [nabs-l] Beneblog: Technology Meets Society: Why I’m
Scared of the
SOPA bill
http://benetech.blogspot.com/2011/11/why-im-scared-of-sopa-bill.h
tml
Why I’m Scared of the SOPA bill
Benetech, is a leading nonprofit organization based in Silicon
Valley. We
write software for people with disabilities as well as human
rights and
environmental groups. We’re against piracy, and have made
commitments to
authors and publishers to encourage compliance with copyright
law.
So, we shouldn’t have anything to fear from a bill entitled “Stop
Online
Piracy Act,” right? Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
We’re getting very worried that our organization and the people
we serve:
people with print disabilities (i.e., people who are blind or
severely
dyslexic), and human rights groups will be collateral damage in
Hollywood’s
attempt to break the Internet in their latest effort to squash
“piracy.”
And, if we’re worried, a lot of other good organizations should
start
getting worried! Let me give two specific examples that came up
in my first
conversation with a lawyer about the proposed bill:
1. Stopping fund raising and subscription revenue for Bookshare,
the largest
online library for people who have print disabilities.
Bookshare is an online library for people who can’t read standard
print
books. We provide accessible ebooks that can be spoken aloud,
turned into
Braille or large print. We serve over 150,000 students with
disabilities
alone with free online services funded by the Department of
Education
(however, nothing contained in this post has anything to do with
our
funders). We also have thousands of adults with disabilities
that pay a $50
a year subscription to be able to download all the books and
newspapers they
can read. Ironically, many of these users might buy commercial
ebooks, but
the anti-piracy technology built into many ebook systems are not
compatible
with the technology these users employ to get the books in
Braille or
synthetic speech.
Bookshare is legal in the United States because our copyright law
includes
an exception that allows nonprofit organizations like Benetech to
make
accessible versions of books for people with print disabilities
without
requesting permission or paying a royalty.
We frequently get emails or letters from authors, agents or
publishers who
don’t know much about people with disabilities or about Section
121 of the
copyright law, calling us pirates and asking us to cease and
desist from
making their books available on the Internet. Often, these
communications
come in the form of what’s called a DMCA or take-down notice.
Now, we have a
nice little letter thanking them, explaining that we only help
people with
bona fide disabilities, that it’s legal, that we’ve worked with
the big
publishing associations and with authors groups, and wouldn’t
they like to
help us in the future by adding more of their books voluntarily
to our
collection. Most of the time, that works great, and we end up
making a new
friend after they dig a little and find out that we are closer to
Florence
Nightingale than the Dread Pirate Roberts.
Sometimes, we have to spend time talking a newbie lawyer down
from high
dudgeon and explaining that there really are such things as
exceptions and
limitations in copyright, and do they really want to have their
client be
the first author to attack the rights of blind people to be able
to get
Braille? And then they go away. Because that’s a lawsuit they
are unlikely
to win, and it would be a professional error to waste their
client’s money
attacking a library doing legal things.
However, SOPA apparently has shoot first, ask questions later
provisions. If
any single publisher or author of any one of the more than
130,000
accessible books in our library gets antsy, they can send a
notice to VISA
and MasterCard and say, stop money from going to Benetech and
Bookshare. No
more donations to our charity. No more subscriptions from
individual adults
with disabilities.
No need to send us a letter. Or file a DMCA notice. Or do any
real research..
Just send out a bunch of notices and get all those pirates!
Except, we’re
not pirates. But, now the burden of proof has shifted to us:
we’re presumed
guilty, and we have to spent time and money defending ourselves.
Sounds kind
of un-American, doesn’t it?
Now, apparently, we can file a counter-notice. But, my guess is
that the
credit card guys are going to play it safe and stay away from
turning
“pirates” back on, and we’d end up in court arguing to be able to
get our
ability to receive funds for our socially beneficial work, not
only to help
people with disabilities but also our work to help environmental
and human
rights groups.
Yet another example of bills written to catch criminals, that do
very little
to stop them, but end up screwing up law-abiding organizations.
2. Endangering Human Rights Activists.
Benetech is one of the largest developers of software for human
rights
activists around the world. We develop free and open source
software to help
groups capture the stories of human rights abuse, and store and
back them up
securely in another country. Wonderful stuff. We work all over
the world,
and our Martus software has been translated into Spanish, French,
Russian,
Arabic, Khmer and other languages.
The U.S. Department of State just funded us to help LGBT groups
in Uganda
securely capture documentation of abuses against those
communities (again,
our funders are not responsible for this post). We work in North
Africa
Latin America, Asia: most of the places where large scale human
rights
abuses are going on. And, in many of these places, we’re helping
the
activists avoid censorship and surveillance by the government.
It’s also
crucially important to be able to assure the confidentiality of
witnesses
and victims both to protect their privacy (i.e., victims of
sexual violence)
and their safety (do you want the police to know that you have
testified to
an illegal killing by the police?).
So, another example of potential collateral damage from SOPA.
The problem is
that we provide technology that allows for security, privacy and
circumvention. We do it for human rights groups. But, when
asked if we know
whether or not there are “pirated” copyrighted materials, we
can’t say.
Because, if we make software that promises to keep your life or
death
sensitive information secret to the best of our abilities, we
won’t build a
back door in for Syria, or China, or the U.S. government or even
(heavens!)
Hollywood.
Apparently, one of the provisions of SOPA is that technology and
servers and
websites that can be used for evading controls on piracy can be
shut down by
the Attorney General. Unfortunately, safeguarding human rights
information
can’t be distinguished from piracy, if the contents are
encrypted. So, our
software, and the TOR network servers we and others operate, and
other
similar technologies, can get shut down in the name of protecting
Hollywood.
Let's Not Do This Stupid Thing, and Avoid Breaking the Internet
In conclusion, I can’t imagine that breaking the Internet, making
charities
waste money fighting thoughtless and careless allegations, and
making it
easier for repressive governments to suppress human rights
groups, was what
was intended when this bill was drafted. Our concerns are just
one set out
of many. Engineers have described this bill as “breaking the
Internet,”
because complying with it requires major (and not good) changes
in how the
Internet works today. Most tech companies think this is the most
counter-productive job and innovation killing bill they've seen
in years.
And, tons of human rights groups have protested against the U.S.
starting to
act more like China than the home of the free. The costs and
impacts far
outweigh any (unlikely) benefit Hollywood would receive. Let’s
not do this
as a country.
Background information:
Electronic Frontier Foundation has great information on SOPA and
related
bills, including this one: SOPA: Hollywood Finally Gets A Chance
to Break
the Internet. If you're so moved, here's where EFF points you to
taking
action by contacting your elected representatives: Take Action |
Electronic
Frontier Foundation.
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